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The Russian presenters take out a map and point to Stockholm.
Then they threaten with a nuclear-armed submarine that will “sweep away” the capital.
– Do you want to be drawn into a nuclear conflict with Russia? This is how it will end, says Mikhail Khodaryonok on state-controlled Channel 1.
In the clip shared by Ukrainian Interior Ministry adviser Anton Gerashchenko, defense columnist and former colonel Mikhail Khodaryonok talks about the risk of a war in the Baltic Sea between NATO and Russia.
Then Sweden is drawn in:
– I want to ask them: 215 years without war, do you want this? Be quiet because you haven’t joined NATO yet and are already acting like you are holier than the Pope, he says.
The program also shows a map of the Baltic Sea before starting to talk about how a nuclear war could affect Sweden and Estonia.
– That is why the residents of Stockholm and Tallinn should ask themselves: “Do we need this?” Can you even imagine an underwater nuclear explosion next to Tallinn or Stockholm that would sweep your city away with a wave?
– Can you imagine a Baltic Sea filled with our mines?
The expert: High probability that the feature is sanctioned by the Kremlin. Photo: Screenshot/XAimed at Russian audience
Lieutenant Colonel Joakim Paasikivi plays down the threat from the TV channel.
– The Baltic Sea is too small for the Poseidon nuclear torpedo that Dmitriy Kiseljov (the Russian presenter) usually threatens Great Britain and the American east coast with. But they seem to be attracted to the idea of nuclear tsunamis, he says.
He says the program is primarily aimed at a Russian audience.
– The program is aimed at a Russian audience that they want to keep constantly afraid that NATO will attack. It justifies all the hardships and the war against Ukraine. The nuclear war is supposed to make the Russians feel strong and confident that it is what protects them from the evil West.
“Is nothing new”
Nor does the Institute for Foreign Policy’s Eastern Europe expert Hugo von Essen think it is something to be taken seriously.
– It is nothing new that Russian TV propagandists speculate about various crazy escalation scenarios that always end with nuclear weapons and that Russia wins, he says and continues:
– It’s nothing to take seriously. Russia is constantly trying to scare the West by playing the nuclear weapon card. This time it’s Estonia and Sweden.
According to von Essen, the probability is high that the feature is sanctioned by the Kremlin.
– It is not something that happens on Russian state television that is not sanctioned or implicitly sanctioned. It may not be directly ordered, but there is scale where more or less everything happens by someone approving it.